In a little town of Plasy, 30 minutes from Plzen by a car (or 45 minutes by bus/train) is located probably one of the most unique zoos Czechia can offer, however, it is not really for reasons zoochatter would normally come up with when it comes to uniqueness. The full name Zoo Plasy Fantasy Golf already gives it away - yup apart from the zoo this is a minigolf course at the same time, with animals being "the extra theming" (and a big passion of the owner).
Opened in 2016, this zoo never really interested me enough to visit it, even though they held some nice species, but I never was "the species hunter" that has to see them no matter what. Also knowing the zoo from pictures I didn't feel like it is for me as some exhibits made me cringe just from the pictures. But now, being in the area and with time to spare, I decided to give it a go. "Who knows when you be able to visit some zoo again" I was telling myself...You can of course choose if you want to just visit the park or if you want to play minigolf as well. Seen species will be in bold as usual.
The park is supposed to replicate "The travel around the world" and it's own weird and chaotic fashion does. After going through the entrance hut, you enter the park, where is minigolf training range and animal sponsor's signs. First section is Japan - the only animal exhibit here is aviary for Lord Derby's parakeet styled as Asian house.
Then you move around the pirate ship and enter the "Caribic" section exhibits here are 3 simple aviaries. First houses silver pheasant, turquoise-fronted amazon, and green-thighed parrot. The second aviary houses Eclectus parrot and Reeves's pheasant. The third one houses gray peacock-pheasant, grey parrot and Timneh parrot here still labeled as subspecies. All 3 aviaries are equipped enough to give parrots perching opportunities but the first two could use a bit more planting for pheasants to hide in. The size is "your average private keeper's facility" so not massive but not to small either. Although Reeves's pheasant male presence made his aviary feel a bit cramped.
The center point of the whole park is the waterfowl pond, whose main viewing platform and signage are in this section as well. Signed are: Bar-headed goose, black swan, red-breasted goose, Barrow's goldeneye, tufted duck, common goldeneye, Eurasian green-winged teal, Wood duck, Mandarin duck, great white pelican and 2 breeds of domestic duck.
Next section is called "Transylvania" and houses following owl species all in average aviaries: snowy owl, spectacled owl, brown wood owl, great horned owl, barn owl, Eurasian eagle-owl and great grey owl. There are also awful aviaries for Edwards's pheasant and Indian peafowl. The owner went deep into the Transylvania theming so there is a lot of skeletons used as decoration.
Adjacent to the Transylvania section but kind of in the middle of nowhere are aviaries for red-footed falcon (placed on the side of an artificial volcano) and red-legged seriema.
Now you leave the golf course for a while and head to the newly developed section, with no real name or so...The memo, that animal pits, no matter how well furnished they are, are outdated and that ground-level viewing is desired seemingly didn't reach this zoo...As in the main stars here are tigers (labeled as bengals
) and 2 groups of lions (labeled P. leo krugeri ) - the normal and the white form. The tiger pit is the biggest of all 3 and probably closest to what can be called a modern big cat exhibit but still far from it. Both lion's exhibits can be described only as "kitsch" - an overabundance of mock rock extravaganza, wall paintings/ornamental designs on walls, white lions have in their exhibit massive fake baobab with even bigger fake vulture (certainly not in scale with real one) on top of it...I mean I see that some people might like it and enjoy it but to me it is just...ew. One cool point though it's climbing structure in one of the lion's exhibit that allows lions to climb to your eye-level. With all the safety measures on top of exhibit walls, I felt almost like a prison warden guarding the inmates in yards below me
. There is also a fairly good ring-tailed lemur exhibit, average macaw (hyacinth, blue and yellow, scarlet) aviary featuring an Olmec colossal head and empty exhibit that will be redone to another macaw aviary. After you get down around the lion exhibit from your high ground. You enter through a gate styled as lion's mouth to tunnel along Leopard exhibit - they have 2 animals, 1 classic and 1 black. The exhibits while small (very similar to Jihlava in terms of size), provide leopards with a good amount of climbing opportunities but all of it is made from concrete and mock rock again...on the other side of the tunnel are not spectacular but alright exhibits for porcupines (can't remember which species and I didn't note it anywhere
), collared peccary, Eurasian lynx and Patagonian mara. Corsac foxes should get their exhibit there as well in the future. Here the path ends, so you have to go back through the leopard tunnel and along the cat exhibits to the golf course part.
Here you enter some weird African American mix, with South American-ishly looking pyramid having Egyptian mummy inside, to meerkat exhibit being styled as a weird hybrid between African and American desert with a mock-rock sand dune.
From there the path leads to "Arizona" section, where the only animal exhibit is the one housing single red-necked wallaby
(I assume it is here because of the "red-necked" reference that is the only thing that made sense to me.)
What follows is a "Mexico" part with two absolutely horrible aviaries for rufous-legged owl and red-lored amazon. After those, your standard coati and raccoon mixed exhibit followed. You can't do much wrong with these animals, just make sure the exhibit is big enough, animals have a den to sleep in and have some climbing opportunities...here you can also purchase some pellets (possibly cat food?) and you can feed them. On the other side of the pavement is a gorilla holding a "Welcome to Africa" sign or something in those lines, so it should be no surprise, that what comes next is a mixed and seemingly overstacked aviary called "Australian bush" - golden pheasant, eastern rosella, crimson rosella, mulga parrot, speckled pigeon, Australian king parrot, red-winged parrot, superb parrot and cockatiel (labeled as swift parrot in English), second, smaller aviary was supposed to house: swift parrot, Gouldian finch, long-tailed finch, king quail, society finch, tricolored parrotfinch, zebra finch, diamond firetail, Temminck's tragopan, red-cheeked cordon-bleu, and Dybowski's twinspot. The aviary was so tiny that I'm pretty positive the unseen species are not in collection at all as there is no way I would be able to miss them. Unsigned but present in the aviary was the second pair of Edward's pheasant, domestic pigeons, and canaries. I wonder how the male pheasant and male tragopan get along in such tiny space...Those two aviaries are divided by something that is probably supposed to be African hut. The last exhibit belonged to a group of Tufted capuchins - classic old-school double meshed, concrete on the floor...functional but not good looking.
All in all, most of the exhibits here are average or below average. The best exhibits being probably the owl section and ring-tailed lemurs, possibly the leopards too. If I would have to say one more positive thing, the planting in the whole park is pretty good and well cared for.
Photos (apologies for missing one of the aviaries, forgot to snap it for some reason): Zoo Plasy - ZooChat
Opened in 2016, this zoo never really interested me enough to visit it, even though they held some nice species, but I never was "the species hunter" that has to see them no matter what. Also knowing the zoo from pictures I didn't feel like it is for me as some exhibits made me cringe just from the pictures. But now, being in the area and with time to spare, I decided to give it a go. "Who knows when you be able to visit some zoo again" I was telling myself...You can of course choose if you want to just visit the park or if you want to play minigolf as well. Seen species will be in bold as usual.
The park is supposed to replicate "The travel around the world" and it's own weird and chaotic fashion does. After going through the entrance hut, you enter the park, where is minigolf training range and animal sponsor's signs. First section is Japan - the only animal exhibit here is aviary for Lord Derby's parakeet styled as Asian house.
Then you move around the pirate ship and enter the "Caribic" section exhibits here are 3 simple aviaries. First houses silver pheasant, turquoise-fronted amazon, and green-thighed parrot. The second aviary houses Eclectus parrot and Reeves's pheasant. The third one houses gray peacock-pheasant, grey parrot and Timneh parrot here still labeled as subspecies. All 3 aviaries are equipped enough to give parrots perching opportunities but the first two could use a bit more planting for pheasants to hide in. The size is "your average private keeper's facility" so not massive but not to small either. Although Reeves's pheasant male presence made his aviary feel a bit cramped.
The center point of the whole park is the waterfowl pond, whose main viewing platform and signage are in this section as well. Signed are: Bar-headed goose, black swan, red-breasted goose, Barrow's goldeneye, tufted duck, common goldeneye, Eurasian green-winged teal, Wood duck, Mandarin duck, great white pelican and 2 breeds of domestic duck.
Next section is called "Transylvania" and houses following owl species all in average aviaries: snowy owl, spectacled owl, brown wood owl, great horned owl, barn owl, Eurasian eagle-owl and great grey owl. There are also awful aviaries for Edwards's pheasant and Indian peafowl. The owner went deep into the Transylvania theming so there is a lot of skeletons used as decoration.
Adjacent to the Transylvania section but kind of in the middle of nowhere are aviaries for red-footed falcon (placed on the side of an artificial volcano) and red-legged seriema.
Now you leave the golf course for a while and head to the newly developed section, with no real name or so...The memo, that animal pits, no matter how well furnished they are, are outdated and that ground-level viewing is desired seemingly didn't reach this zoo...As in the main stars here are tigers (labeled as bengals
) and 2 groups of lions (labeled P. leo krugeri ) - the normal and the white form. The tiger pit is the biggest of all 3 and probably closest to what can be called a modern big cat exhibit but still far from it. Both lion's exhibits can be described only as "kitsch" - an overabundance of mock rock extravaganza, wall paintings/ornamental designs on walls, white lions have in their exhibit massive fake baobab with even bigger fake vulture (certainly not in scale with real one) on top of it...I mean I see that some people might like it and enjoy it but to me it is just...ew. One cool point though it's climbing structure in one of the lion's exhibit that allows lions to climb to your eye-level. With all the safety measures on top of exhibit walls, I felt almost like a prison warden guarding the inmates in yards below me. There is also a fairly good ring-tailed lemur exhibit, average macaw (hyacinth, blue and yellow, scarlet) aviary featuring an Olmec colossal head and empty exhibit that will be redone to another macaw aviary. After you get down around the lion exhibit from your high ground. You enter through a gate styled as lion's mouth to tunnel along Leopard exhibit - they have 2 animals, 1 classic and 1 black. The exhibits while small (very similar to Jihlava in terms of size), provide leopards with a good amount of climbing opportunities but all of it is made from concrete and mock rock again...on the other side of the tunnel are not spectacular but alright exhibits for porcupines (can't remember which species and I didn't note it anywhere), collared peccary, Eurasian lynx and Patagonian mara. Corsac foxes should get their exhibit there as well in the future. Here the path ends, so you have to go back through the leopard tunnel and along the cat exhibits to the golf course part.Here you enter some weird African American mix, with South American-ishly looking pyramid having Egyptian mummy inside, to meerkat exhibit being styled as a weird hybrid between African and American desert with a mock-rock sand dune.
From there the path leads to "Arizona" section, where the only animal exhibit is the one housing single red-necked wallaby
(I assume it is here because of the "red-necked" reference that is the only thing that made sense to me.)What follows is a "Mexico" part with two absolutely horrible aviaries for rufous-legged owl and red-lored amazon. After those, your standard coati and raccoon mixed exhibit followed. You can't do much wrong with these animals, just make sure the exhibit is big enough, animals have a den to sleep in and have some climbing opportunities...here you can also purchase some pellets (possibly cat food?) and you can feed them. On the other side of the pavement is a gorilla holding a "Welcome to Africa" sign or something in those lines, so it should be no surprise, that what comes next is a mixed and seemingly overstacked aviary called "Australian bush" - golden pheasant, eastern rosella, crimson rosella, mulga parrot, speckled pigeon, Australian king parrot, red-winged parrot, superb parrot and cockatiel (labeled as swift parrot in English), second, smaller aviary was supposed to house: swift parrot, Gouldian finch, long-tailed finch, king quail, society finch, tricolored parrotfinch, zebra finch, diamond firetail, Temminck's tragopan, red-cheeked cordon-bleu, and Dybowski's twinspot. The aviary was so tiny that I'm pretty positive the unseen species are not in collection at all as there is no way I would be able to miss them. Unsigned but present in the aviary was the second pair of Edward's pheasant, domestic pigeons, and canaries. I wonder how the male pheasant and male tragopan get along in such tiny space...Those two aviaries are divided by something that is probably supposed to be African hut. The last exhibit belonged to a group of Tufted capuchins - classic old-school double meshed, concrete on the floor...functional but not good looking.
All in all, most of the exhibits here are average or below average. The best exhibits being probably the owl section and ring-tailed lemurs, possibly the leopards too. If I would have to say one more positive thing, the planting in the whole park is pretty good and well cared for.
Photos (apologies for missing one of the aviaries, forgot to snap it for some reason): Zoo Plasy - ZooChat
